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[House  No.   10.] 


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HOUSE  OF   REPRESENTATIVES.—  Febuary  9,   1863.— Read 
first  and  second  times,  laid  on  the  table,  and  ordered  to  be  printed. 

[  By  Mr.  Smith,  of  Alabama.] 


MEMOKIAL 

OF 

J.  S.  HARWELL  AND  EUGENE  MCAA. 


Cumberland  Gap,  Jan.  27th,  1563,  ) 

Camp  of  43d  Regiment  Alabama  Volunteers.  > 

rTo  the  Congress  of  the  Confederate  S'ates  of  America  : 

The  undersigned,  citizens  of  Alabama,  now  serving  as  volunteer 
soldiers  in  the  amy  of  the  Confederate  States,  would  respectfully 
ask  your  attention  to  the  following  statements  : 

They  are  free  citizens  of  an  independant  and  sovereign  State  ;  they 
have  voluntarily  left  their  homes  and  fire  sides  to  join  the  army,  not 
as  hired  mercenaries,  but  as  freemen,  to  battle  for  the  rights  and  liber- 
ties of  their  native  land,  and  they  therefore  claim  that  they  are  enti- 
tled to  be  treated  with  that  respect  and  courtesy  which  is  due  to  gen- 
tlemen. They  claim,  too,  that  as  white  men  they  are  fighting  for  the 
privileges  of  their  race,  and  do  therefore  protest  against  every  law 
and  usage  which  has  the  tendency  to  reduce  them  to  the  level  of  the 
negro. 

For  the  punishment  of  various  offences,  the  Articles  of  War  pro- 
vide, that  the  offender  "  shall  suffer  such  punishment  as  shall  be  in- 
flicted on  him  by  the  sentence  of  a  court  martial."  Assuming  that 
this  gives  the  auth  >rity,  court  martials  have  sentenced  men,  in  seve- 
ral instances,  to  the  degrading  and  disgraceful  punishment  of  the 
lash,  to  be  stripped,  tied  and  whipped  with  a  cowhide,  until  the  blood 
ran  from  their  lacerated  backs,  and  they  had  to  be  sent  to  the  hospi- 
tals for  treatment !  This  is  no  overdrawn  picture.  Such  a  case  has 
been  witnessed  by  your  memorialists,  and  they  think  the  outrage  de- 
mands prompt  redress  by  an  act  of  Congress. 

In  no  free  State  have  the  citizens  ever  been  liable  to  be  punished  by 
the  lash,  if  we  except  the  punishment  sometimes  inflicted  by  the  com- 
mon law  of  England.  No  Athenian  could  be  beaten  with  stripes,  be- 
cause the  high  spirited  Greek  felt  that  such  punishment  was  only 
suitable  for  barbarians  and  slaves.  One  of  the  principal  charges 
against  Verres,  was  that  he  had  caused  Roman  citizens  to  be  whipped 


like  slaves — and  in  making  this  charge  against  him,  the  orator  proud- 
ly boasted  of  the  privileges  of  a  Roman  citizen,  and  denounces  the 
man,  who  in  his  capacity  of  a  military  officer,  had  dared  to  set  at  de- 
fiance one  of  the  most  valued  rights  of  citizenship.  Never  durin^  the 
Middle  Ages  were  the  free  feudatories  of  the  king  subject  to  cor- 
poreal punishment,  lie  might  be  executed  for  crime  ;  might  be  hung, 
drawn  and  quartered  for  treason,  but  for  no  misdemeanor,  could  the 
freeman  be  subjected  to  the  lash,  without  usurpation  and  abuse  of 
power.  It  was  not  until  a  decay  of  the  feudal  system  ;  until  the  kings 
ceased  to  rely  on  their  own  retainers,  and  began  to  hire  mercenaries, 
and  form  standing  armies,  that  whipping  began  to  be  practised  in  the 
armies  of  Europe.  Then  they  began  to  inflict  punishment  by  orders 
from  courts  martial,  and  men  were  whipped  for  military  misdemeanors. 
So  jealous,  however,  were  the  English  of  their  liberties,  that  they 
carefully  guarded  against  the  recognition  of  any  court  martial,  or  any 
power  to  punish,  except  through  the  regular  courts  of  common  law, 
that  courts  martial  were  unknown  to  the  English  law  until  after  the 
Revolution  of  1G8S.  Even  then,  although  the  times  imperatively 
demanded  a  change  in  the  military  code,  yet  it  was  with  great  diffi- 
culty that  the  government  succeeded  in  passing  the  first  military 
bill  Even  now  this  bill  has  to  be  passed  at  each  session  of  Parlia- 
ment. The  Congress  of  the  United  States  prohibited  whipping  both 
in  the  army  and  navy.  Why  then  should  the  infamous  practice  be 
perpetuated  in  the  Confederate  States  !  Are  we  desirous  of  rivalling 
the  Russians  in  the  use  of  the  knout,  or  the  Austrians  in  the  bar- 
barities which  they  inflicted  in  Hungary  and  Italy"! 

There  is  one  reason,  if  there  were  no  other,  which  is  sufficient  to 
cause  the  abolition  of  this  degrading  punishment  at  the  South.  Hero 
the  white  man  is  by  nature  a  superior  being;  the  influence  of  casU 
has  a  powerful  influence  both  upon  him  and  over  the  negro  popula- 
tion. He  feels  his  superiority,  and  feels  that  in  this  war  he  is  fight- 
ing for  the  supremacy  of  his  race.  In  every  regiment  from  the  South 
there  arc  a  number  of  negroes,  many  of  them  belong  to  the  privates. 
No  court  martial  can  sentence  an  officer  to  be  whipped.  But  any 
gentleman,  by  some  accident,  or  even  by  the  wilful  commission  of 
some  trilling  offence,  whose  person  does  not  happen  to  be  protected 
by  a  piece  of  gold  lace  on  the  sleeve  and  collar,  may  be  sentenced  to 
be  flogged  like  a  common  slave  !  Now  will  any  negro,  who  has  seen 
his  master  flogged,  have  any  respect  for  him  again  !  Will  such  a 
negro  not  be  a  dangerous  man,  when  he  returns  home,  and  tells  his 
fellow-slaves  how  the  white  man  was  stripped,  tied  and  whipped  more 
severely  than  any  negro  on  the  plantation  has  ever' been. 

Your  memorialists  believe  that  the  courts  martial  have  usurped  au- 
thority, and  that  there  is  no  act  of  Congress,  no  regulation  of  the 
army,  no  power  whatever  that  can  subject  a  volunteer  to  the  disgrace- 
ful punishment  of  the  lash.  Your  memorialists,  therefore,  earnestly 
beg  that  the  matter  may  be  inquired  into,  and  th^t  a  stop  may  be  put 
to  this  infamous,  cruel  and  degrading  practice. 

J.  S.  HARWELL, 
EUGENE   M'CAA. 


Hollinger  Corp. 
PH8.5 


